Irish business evolves with era of hybrid work

More than 90% of Irish executives surveyed have hired, or plan to hire people to develop their flexible working policy

Matt Elliott, chief people officer, Bank of Ireland, said that the bank is establishing 11 remote working hubs where employees can book a desk.  More than three-quarters of the bank's staff now want to work from home for a substantial part of the week.

Since March 2020, we have been guinea pigs in a great social experiment.

Almost overnight, we were instructed to live our lives close to home. Individuals and organisations alike have had to transform the way they operate.

Best laid plans have been cast aside. In recent weeks, the surge in the number of cases has once again forced people into reverse gear with plans for large-scale returns to the physical, as opposed to the virtual workplace, being put on hold.

What is clear is that some of the changes will be permanent. Many workers are keen to operate on a hybrid basis coming into the office or plant, no longer prepared to undertake the daily commute.

At the same time, we have clearly not turned into hermits. Restaurant bookings in Ireland this autumn have been running well ahead of those two years ago. People’s desire to congregate and physically communicate can only be temporarily repressed.

Leading Irish-based organisations have been adapting, well aware that they could lose out in an often tight labour market if they display too much rigidity.

A delicate balance needs to be reached between accommodating people’s desire for personal safety and autonomy, and meeting the ongoing requirement for successful teamwork, individual productivity, and innovation.

New research published by LinkedIn reveals that over two-thirds of Irish business leaders believe that flexible working can offer an opportunity to improve workforce diversity. Using improved broadband connections to enable more remote working expands the pool of available talent ensuring that losses of experienced staff, particularly mothers, are curtailed. This, in turn, leads to reduced organisational disruption and expenditure on recruitment, often a big drain on the budget.

There remains scope for improvement, but managers demonstrate awareness of the challenge.

More than one-third of executives in a recent LinkedIn survey — as reported by Irish Tech News — revealed that job applicants were put off by their workplace policy. Almost one-half admitted that they have lost talent to competitors in the past six months.

Some 90% of Irish executives surveyed have hired, or plan to hire people to develop their flexible working policy.

However, the depth of commitment to the move towards flexibility remains in question, with almost one half stating that they will only offer the current level of flexibility for the next few years.

CIPD — the body representing HR managers/ professionals — has also recently published an interesting survey on hybrid working which suggests that 40% of surveyed employers expect that more than half of their workforce will work from home after the pandemic has eventually ended (or abated).

Most employees expect to work part of the time in an office, central or local.

Back in May 2020, 4,300 members of the Forsa trade union — largely based in the public sector — were interviewed and 70% said that remote working had been a positive or very positive experience. Concerns were expressed around health and safety, the suitability of work spaces, work encroaching on home life and a disconnect from the workplace (and fellow employees and managers).

Concerns about a lack of interaction with colleagues was expressed by 69% of respondents at the time.

Forsa has welcomed the Government’s strategy on remote working, published in January. This strategy provides employees with a legal right to request home working.

Up to recently, much attention was focused on the planned return to the workplace. The union has suggested that organisations should continue to “build on the positive experience of remote working.” Forsa’s head of communications, Bernard Harbor, has called on the Government and employers to maintain consultations with the unions about a safe return to the workplace. The plan is to switch over time to a blended work arrangement from one based on remote working.

Not all survey findings on the issue have been upbeat. Two thousand British and US professionals have been polled by Qatalog with 63% of respondents finding that it had been hard to build trust between workers while working remotely.

Balance of power shifts to employees

As the founding CEO of Qatalog, Tariq Rauf, put it: “You used to be able to walk into the office, talk to people, get their perspective. Now it is the opposite. The workplace is hugely fragmented.”

It is hard to put yourself in the shoes of others, he says.

“The Great Resignation is a huge danger for many businesses — the balance of power is shifting towards employees.”

Some companies appear to be adapting well, however.

Twitter employs around 200 people in Ireland, a key part of the country’s large and growing technology cluster. In 2018, it began allowing people to work from home on demand. Its decision was originally driven by the need to attract talent and promote retention. Its head of HR, Jennifer Christie told Forbes that, as a result, its Pandemic ‘pivot’ has been “fairly seamless”.

Twitter has replaced ‘synchronised communication’ in the form of meetings with a so called a-sync first policy. Employees can contribute to sessions at the time of their choosing from wherever they are located.

The company operates a timezone equity policy. In other words, not everything is geared to head office and its needs.

Earlier this summer, Vodafone Ireland announced a return to the office by employees on a hybrid basis, with staff continuing to spend 60% of their time working remotely, with the remaining 40% back in the office with the rest of their team. The traditional nine to five, five day week model is viewed as being gone.

Guidelines on the importance of wellbeing and mental health, on ‘disconnecting’ from work and the use of technology have been developed.

It helps that the company has operated a flexible working policy for many years.

The two big banks have also reacted.

Around 7,500 AIB employees were working from home at the height of the pandemic, though some staff in key roles still had to attend the office . In December, the bank set out its hybrid work strategy. It has reduced the amount of head office space and is establishing satellite hubs.

According to the bank “the strategy means that many of our employees can leave behind the five-day commute”.

Matt Elliott, chief people officer with Bank of Ireland, recently told CIPD News that around 3,500 employees were already working with some degree of flexibility by early 2020. The pandemic has allowed HR to rethink its role, he added.

More than three quarters of the staff now want to work from home for a substantial part of the week. For some, a halfway house solution is on offer.

The bank is establishing 11 remote working hubs where employees can book a desk.

Just nine per cent seek a return to the office on a permanent basis.

Third-level colleges have faced the challenge of dealing with growing numbers on campus since the summer while attempting to keep employees, students and others safe from infection.

UCD president, Andrew Deeks, has issued a response to the call from the Taoiseach, Micheál Martin for people to work from home as much as possible following the rise in Covid cases. Prof Deeks indicated that training and learning activities will continue to be delivered face to face. However, people meeting from different departments should resort more to Zoom technology.

UCD has introduced a system of trials under which staff can develop arrangements with their managers. It has opted to avoid offering detail guidance from above.

The ‘hybrid working trial’ has now been extended up until August 2022 in what amounts to a decentralised approach to managing the situation. For example, local leadership teams will agree on the frequency of in person meetings.

Professor John Geary of UCD is completing a Working in Ireland Survey which will examine the views of workers on whether productivity has increased or decreased during the pandemic and if, for example, more work has been undertaken outside contracted hours.

Prof Geary will examine issues such as levels of employee participation in decision making and the impact of remote work on motivation, innovation, and productivity.

There is informal evidence that at least in some areas, the quality of service provision has deteriorated during the pandemic due to the scattering of staff and problems with communication. This is certainly the experience of this writer.

One perhaps unexpected side benefit is evidence that remote working has potential for assisting in the removal of barriers to the employment of people with disabilities. A new report by Joan O’Donnell of Maynooth University contains some positive findings in this regard together with important caveats.

Some people with disabilities working remotely have reported feeling added pressure to perform in their job.

Sacha Labourey, founder of Cloud infrastructure company Sound Bees, has an interesting perspective on all of this.

Sacha Labourey, founder of Cloud infrastructure company Sound Bees.

He suggests that “overcommunicating with your team” is key to making things run when employees are operating on a remote basis. Many firms have failed to address the deeper issue of how to manage workflows when they are operating in large part through Zoom.

As he told Isabel Berwick of the Financial Times, “managing remote teams is a skill in itself”. As he observes, people like to meet with each other even when a company is run remotely.

The idea is to “meet with a purpose” working on a project over a period of say, two to three days. Labourey also favours virtual ‘water cooler’ events aimed at promoting bonding.

He would also like it if organisations such as Google — dedicated to the creation of the perfect work space — could turn their attention to the issue of the daily commute for the average employee.

“Top executives live in central London or Manhattan. The commute is not really a problem for them.”

What is also accepted is that younger workers cannot simply be abandoned in some version of the commercial outback. They will continue to need to sort of informal mentoring that is available on tap face to face in well-run organisations.